Paul's History - Your History I
Galatians 1:11-24 · Vern Peterman · May 20, 2007
Galatians (2007), No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926027377777

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to move into this rich passage here shortly. Before we do that, I just wanted to give a kind of a brief for view of the electives that we're anticipating next quarter starting in July. So is that brief enough? OK, let's try it again. Anyway, these are the electives we announced last week, and we're expecting those in the Romans elective to stay there. and finish it out, but we have two new ones. Those of you who are not in the Romans elective, feel free to ponder that and we'll soon put the sign-ups up and you can take a look at which one you'd like to join.

All right, into this passage here, we're moving into a section of Galatians where Paul is beginning to describe things particularly in his own life and history. So as Courtney read, we got two slides here, but one section, 11 through 17. One of the things that I'd like to point out just to kind of keep us oriented, we pointed out from the very beginning that the whole book of Galatians is a large chiasm. That is a mirror image in words. And we'll be taking kind of the very last part of the prologue, this intense prologue that Paul has. this entire section of the two ways of Paul's living as an unbeliever and as a believer, and the very beginning part of the next section on justification by faith and Paul's life. So, kind of grabbing at a large chunk here. Let's first take a look at these couple of verses 11 and 12.

As we do that here, one of the things we'll see is that Paul is telling them in these verses something that wasn't likely new information. It was very likely something that either he had told them before, or it may even have been something that other people had pointed out. But he's telling them as a reminder for emphasis, to bring it up again, to bring it to their mind. I would have you know, certainly you know already, but let's get this fresh in your mind. His reasons for pointing this out so they have it very clearly in their mind, this is the situation. And so he tells about the circumstance before he was saved and afterwards.

Paul didn't need to have the apostles in Jerusalem. This is an emphatic point of this whole section. Paul did not need to have the apostles in Jerusalem tell him the gospel or to have anyone teach him at all. We can tell from verses 6-10, the prior section that we studied, Paul was exceedingly concerned about the news that the believers in Galatia, Gentiles included, had fallen under.

That they had been sucked into this, everybody has got to do the law of Moses in order to be saved and in order to stay saved. It set aside salvation through faith in Christ. It was serious business. That didn't stop him here from seeing these people as brethren in the Lord. He says, you have serious error going on there, but let me just say right here, I recognize your brothers in the Lord. I know that you have put your trust in Christ. I was there. I'm writing to you as brothers.

The next line there, the gospel that was preached to you, The gospel that was preached by Christ wasn't in conflict with anything that the other apostles taught. There was no different gospel, but there were some additional truths that Paul conveyed. He passed on things that were unique to him.

Now, for example, Paul seems uniquely to have said that we were identified with Christ. You find some hints of it, for example, in 1 Peter. But very specifically, that's one of Paul's teachings. Paul seems to have uniquely laid out that Christ is the head and we are the body. That is Paul's teaching. Paul uniquely said that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. That's uniquely his. It doesn't conflict with what the apostles taught, but it adds truth to it. We're also going to see in this passage why the Gospel that Paul taught had some unique characteristics to it and was so precious. Now, the next one is not according to man.

Think about this for a minute. Questions for you to ponder. What would you expect a gospel according to man to be like? Just think about that. What would you expect a gospel according to man to be like? And you think of some characteristics that it might have. What kinds of things would you include in this gospel according to man? What would you make sure wasn't there?

Matter of fact, do we have anything that's a gospel according to man on earth right now? Yeah. Count on it. A whole bunch of them. As a matter of fact, our spiritual enemy would like to multiply as many of those as possible. The more, the better, because it's more confusing. The start of verse 12, Paul did not receive the gospel from any mere human being. There wasn't some human being that laid the gospel before him.

No human being of any kind. The word translated received here is in the active voice. So Paul didn't just kind of get it from somebody. He said, I didn't pursue somebody. I didn't say, hey, give me some kind of gospel. He didn't actively do it. Paul denied that he was taught it, too. The Greek word translated taught is in the passive voice. Nobody pursued me to give it to me. No human being, no angel. No. That's not how it happened. It wasn't just give it to them. Then we have this word, but, small three letters, but it's big for this reason. In the Greek, he chose the word Allah, which means a big difference, day and night kind of difference, bold contrast.

Unlike the idea that Paul had maybe the training of a rabbi, and that's how I got my gospel. I had some rabbi that I studied under. or that some other human being pursued him to give it to him, or an angel came and said, hey, I've got some gospel for you to pass along. There are a number of people in the last couple of centuries, for example, that have claimed that. We pointed out last week, that's how the Koran came along. Supposedly the angel Gabriel gave it to Muhammad. No, Paul says that's not how it happened.

He received the gospel by a completely different source. The last line in verse 12, I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He got these magnificent insights, these teachings that we have uniquely portrayed for us in scripture. Because Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, the one who paid the price for our sins, in resurrected body, taught him directly. That's how we got the Gospel from Paul. There's no middleman, there's no go-between, it's not from other human beings or angels, not even via the internet. He didn't download it. No, the Lord Himself, the Lord of Glory gave it to him. Jesus Christ is the source of Paul's teaching.

And it wasn't something he says, hey, let's get together on Saturday and we'll just talk about it. No, this was something that took some time. Quite a bit of time as a matter of fact. The Lord spent lots of time directly with Paul to teach him these precious and unique things. Stepping into verses 13 and 14, For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism. Now, Paul had told these believers in Galatia, almost certainly, about how he was really into being a Jew and really into the Judaism that was being taught. He was famously zealous and it's quite likely even that others said, oh yeah, let me tell you about Paul. He was rabid. He went and listed his qualifications when he wrote to various people and churches.

There's this word former in the middle of that top line there. This is a word that is translated from the Greek word pate. And just so you're sure, it's none of that yucky liver pasty stuff. Okay. This is a word means formerly. Okay. And this word was used consistently. I found this real interesting.

It doesn't matter, Paul, Peter, you look at the apostles, they use this word particularly consistently to talk about the manner of life and the time before the people were saved. They all use this word, and Paul uses it here as well. Paul next outlined, well, a lot of people would say the high points, I'll call it the low points of his life, his former life. And something else to take note of here, Paul didn't talk about his religion in Judaism as the truth or the true religion. No, he didn't give it terms like that. He didn't talk about that way. He called it Judaism.

Now, you might say, well, that's just the law of Moses. No, it's more than that. Unfortunately, much more than that. It was the law of Moses loaded down with all kinds of extra rules. Because after all, if you're supposed to take the Sabbath day off, we've got to define what work is a thousand different ways. As technology has gone on, they've increased the definitions of what work is. Because after all, you can't push an elevator button, that's work. You can't tear off the toilet paper sheets, that's work. Lots and lots and lots of extra rules.

You've got to define that if you can only go a Sabbath day's journey with your house, then if you want to go farther on a Sabbath than a Sabbath day's journey, you'd have to take a piece of your house with you and leave it one Sabbath day's journey so you can go another Sabbath day's.

Serious! That's what they would do. And so if you took five things with you, you could go six Sabbath day's journeys. That's what they would do. and just leave them at the end of a Sabbath day's journey along the way, and that's a part of your house. And you haven't traveled more than a Sabbath day's journey away from your house. So if you find all kinds of things along the road, just leave them there because you know who they belong to, right? There was another thing about the way they used the law. It was used to elevate some and victimize others. You can't heal that guy because it's the Sabbath. Oh yeah? You can't do anything good for Him because we've got our rules. You can't do that.

Paul's persecution of the church as Saul was first recorded in Acts chapter 7, 7.58. The very first verse of Acts chapter 9. Dr. Luke wrote this way, he says, Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Later on, Paul himself testifies, any chance I had, I voted for death.

See, he didn't want Christians to just have a bad time. He wanted them to have no time at all. He wasn't just a little irritated. You ever have something like that where you're irritated, it doesn't mean you want to kill somebody, but you're just... He wasn't just a little irritated, he wanted the Christians dead. That was his solution. Wipe them out, make them so they don't exist.

In verse 14, he says, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen. I was really climbing the Judaic ladder. He was climbing this ladder of success and prestige among all the Jews. And in Philippians 3, verses 4 through 6, he lays out seven of his qualifications under Judaism.

Four of those were a matter of things he never had control over, like being born of the tribe of Benjamin and being circumcised. I'm sure he didn't do that himself. And then, three, there were things that he had accomplished. Oh, I've done this and I've done that. No, he says, you've heard about that stuff. had all the qualifications you could ask for.

He was certainly a rising star in Judaism. Now look what he says, more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. Now you think of zeal already, that's an extreme word just by itself. There was a group and one of the disciples that our Lord chose was a zealot. And the zealots already were in a place, a number of them were actually committing murder because they were so zealous.

So what does Paul do? He adds more extremely on top of that. Really extreme. I'm talking major extreme here. Paul wants to make sure that we know that he's way, way beyond pedal to the metal. He wasn't just zealous. He wasn't just more zealous, he was more extremely zealous. Now we're talking intense.

For my ancestral traditions, now notice here, it wasn't a matter of just carrying on the law of Moses. Not just that, oh no, the whole set of traditions, everything that had been added to it. He was full on, full out. for all the little rules you could add to the law. You see, it wasn't good enough to just have a law. You had to have a dozen laws all around it to make sure you didn't break the one that Moses gave. Extra ones. So it wasn't the 613 laws with 365 don'ts. It was thousands of laws. Thousands of laws. Remember, you do them all. Every one, just right.

Verses 15-17 here now introduce us to something. But when God... Paul, as you look through his writings, is fond of saying, but God, in different places. One of them that we saw when we were studying through Ephesians, but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us. Paul would write, here's the way it was before the Lord came into the believer's life.

But God did this. Look what God accomplished. And a big contrast, not a small one. God made a big difference in what he did and accomplished. After he described what happened among the unsaved people, he would then say what God did, and it was always radical difference. Huge, massive spiritual difference. Here he inserted when, and I think it's focusing on the time, but when God.

God came at a particular period of time in Paul's life and made a radical change. Here he was on his way to kill some more Christians. And the Lord himself appears before Paul, and the Lord doesn't say, Paul, why are you persecuting those people who belong to me? Paul, why do you persecute me, the Lord says. The Lord takes it personally. Isn't that something?

And that's valuable for us to know. But when God, who had set me apart from my mother's womb, you think about this, the Lord had indeed set Paul apart from his mother's womb, but look, it took decades where Paul was getting More and more intense. He described himself as getting to the point of being more extremely zealous to kill Christians. Had he already been set apart? In the Lord. Isn't that something? And yet, externally, it looked like he was going the opposite direction. The Lord was doing something here. Paul wouldn't believe for years. and yet the Lord had already begun moving.

He says, the Lord called me through His grace. He had written in chapter 1 verse 6 about the calling that they had because of the Lord's grace. Him who called you by the grace of Christ. The Lord called you and the Lord called me. He spells that out. He underscores that Every single one of us is called to the Lord. If you're a believer here this morning, you're called to the Lord. He doesn't just say, oh, just the apostles get it. No. If you're a believer here this morning, we can say categorically, you are called to the Lord. And you know what? You are no less called than Paul. He uses the same word. And he underscores their calling. As a matter of fact, he pays attention to that before he pays attention to his own.

In 2 Timothy, he wrote to Timothy, God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, it's not all that law stuff, but according to his own purpose and grace which he granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. 1 Peter, as we studied in the elective here some time back, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ. The apostles are consistent about this. And every single believer here this morning is called, called to the Lord, no less than Paul. The gospel was given to Paul by grace.

He didn't earn it. He didn't merit it. Imagine, here is Paul spending personal time At length, with the Lord Jesus Christ, to learn the things that He was given, He said, it was all by grace, I didn't earn it. There was nothing I could do to earn that privilege. As a matter of fact, I was on my way to kill Christians when the Lord stopped me on the way to Damascus. I didn't earn it, not even sort of.

The Lord was pleased to reveal His Son in me. This revelation that Paul got from the Lord wasn't just sort of passed along. The Lord didn't come to Paul and say, Paul, I'll send you an email. He didn't say, Paul, I've got this little package for you. Read it when you get a chance. It wasn't sent along superficially. You have the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, the Savior, of all who will believe in Him, right before Paul, personally, telling him these truths.

Putting this precious set of Gospel truths in his mind, personally. That's special. It was transforming grace. It would make a man who wanted to kill Christians, willing to die so that people would become Christians. It would make a man who was rabidly for the law, wildly proclaiming grace, radically transforming grace. He says, so that I might preach among the Gentiles this gospel that he had wasn't just a massive information.

Ever seen one of those computer printouts and it's just a big massive stack of paper and it just comes out one after another after another and you may have to have huge binding systems to pull it together? The Lord didn't just say, here's some data. Here's your printouts for today. He gave him essential, precious, Irreplaceable gospel. Good news. The other thing is, it's preach Him. Preach Him. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He says, For indeed, Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Him. Him. He said, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.

When this fellow Saul, later called Paul, came to know the Lord, Ananias did come there and help him initially, but it wasn't Ananias that taught him these things. It wasn't Ananias that spent a great deal of time discipling him. That was just his introduction and help from being blinded to finally seeing. to also, I'm sure, getting out of Damascus safely. So, Paul didn't need to consult with the other apostles or be informed by them or commissioned to go to the Gentile lands.

Then the question is, how did it happen? By personal commission of Jesus Christ. Imagine, here is Paul, having been taught the Gospel point by point. Can you imagine the Lord Jesus Christ looking you in the eye and telling you, Paul, I died for you. Paul, you were there, you were identified with me when I was on that cross. The Lord of Glory telling him that personally. You think you're going to forget that? I think not. I think not.

But I went away to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus. Now, as soon as a lot of us hear Arabia, we start thinking of all sorts of things that get conjured up in our minds. I want to kind of get it corrected in terms of what he's talking about. A lot of this stuff that came out of actually Islam six, seven centuries later, it just has nothing to do with it. And this is what he's talking about.

Arabia was an area that was also known as Nabatea. It was an area that was south and east of where the Jews were in the land of Israel. And Damascus was just right at the north end of that area. And here's a picture of Straight Street, the place where Ananias found Paul in Damascus.

But it's that area that he's talking about when he says Arabia. We tend to think of often what is now called Saudi Arabia and he's not talking that far away. Now there's a place that's numbered here and I want to mark it. It's Petra. It was the capital of this area called Arabia. So that's a place where he may well have spent time, maybe even all the time, because he doesn't specify where.

But he may well have spent some time there as he was learning from the Lord Jesus Christ. And interestingly, the language that they wrote looks like tall Hebrew. Letters that are like Hebrew, but elongated about three or four times as tall. Isn't that interesting? So this would be on a larger map where Petra would be located, just so we kind of keep it in perspective. Now you may have seen pictures of Petra before. As a matter of fact, if you have seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you've seen Petra.

This scene here. And so that's taken in Petra. And that would be the capital of this area that he calls Arabia. And here's one of the places lit up at night. So you can have an idea of what, you know, Paul may have walked these very hallways and steps. And this is another part of Petra. So you get an idea of what that was like.

Now, next week we're going to be going into verses 18 through 24 to look at the rest of the story, but I'd like us to ponder something here for a minute. When we look at this last part of the passage, we can look at it and say, well, that's all about Paul. But the truth is, the truth is, yeah, it's about Paul, but there's a whole lot about it that's true of you. Let's take a look at that. Let's look at these parallels that might escape us if we don't look at it. Think about this. But when God...

Paul used that as the divider. God did something. And it's when Paul became a believer that this sudden radical change took place. God was acting beforehand to set Paul apart. Think about that in your own life. Was there a time before you believed? Can you put a but-when God in your own life? I was this, but God. But God did this. I was this, but God accomplished that. And like with Paul, notice that what God did and what God accomplished It wasn't something that the Lord just caught up with when we believed.

The truth is, He's prepared this long ago. Long ago. What we do is we recognize the time and we say, okay, that's the time I believe. And certainly those changes take place. But the Lord has been preparing for that time from all eternity for you. Set you apart. This is equivalent to the word holy, saint. If you're a believer here this morning, you are a saint. You don't have to wait for anybody to declare it, because God says so. You are set apart by God's doing.

You're set apart for a purpose. Notice that Paul didn't say, I was set apart and now I just sit here and write things. No. He was set apart for a purpose. The same is true for you. Called you through His grace. Notice that he said, the Lord called me, Paul wrote. And he said in verse 6, the Lord called you.

This is true of every single believer. The Lord has called each and every single believer here this morning. Every single one. No exceptions. And your calling is no less than the Apostle Paul's. Isn't that something? And it's entirely through His grace. None of us earned it. None of us by our great character and nature deserved it. No. It's all by His grace.

Paul wrote that he says, he was pleased to reveal his Son in me. But guess what? Is that true of you? Absolutely. The Lord is pleased to reveal his Son to you. The Lord is pleased to reveal his Son in you. And the Lord is pleased to reveal his Son through you. That's true of you. And isn't it amazing to think, you wonder what pleases the Lord? What pleases the Lord? Exactly those things. The Lord is pleased to reveal His Son to you, in you, and through you. That pleases the Lord.

You. The one He called. So that you might. Now, for Paul, he described, here's what the Lord had in mind for him. But let me tell you, the Lord has something in mind for you too. And He has, by His doing, qualified you. Now, we can count on a general statement.

Here's Ephesians 2.10, He has prepared good works that we might walk in them. It is by His intent, all the things that He has done up to this point, so that you might.

The ministries that the Lord has for you. And it might change during different parts of your life too. Even if you're raising kids, guess what? You've got a ministry, and it's exceedingly important, so that you might. The Lord has done these things so that you might carry out the ministry that He has for you at whatever stage in life you're at, wherever He's put you. The Lord has done these things so that you might. And notice, preaching hymn.

It's going to be about Christ. The Lord has saved us not to just put us on a shelf to gather dust. The Lord has saved us not so that we can come here and just put a lot of spiritual information in our heads. The Lord has saved us to behold Him. We gather here this morning to behold Him through His Word. Our salvation is accomplished by Him. It's about Him. And we will behold Him for all eternity.

Right now is a great time to start. And the Lord had prepared Paul until the Lord got his attention there at Damascus. He didn't even know it. But the Lord had prepared Paul for the job that he had for him. And the same thing is true of us. The Lord is always preparing us for what's next.

Sometimes people might think, oh, why does this have to happen to me? You're getting ready. How come I have this? That's because I'm preparing you. Do I have to go to church? I'm getting you ready. Do I have to listen to Verne? Yeah, I'm getting you ready.

The Lord is always preparing us for what's next. Always. Even think of this. going to take you home. Isn't he preparing you for that? He is always preparing us for what's next. Always. No exceptions. What is happening in our lives, our reason for gathering together this morning, is preparing us for what's next. Paul is prepared. We are being prepared. For his purpose.

Every single one of us. Because we're called. Because we're in him. Because we can look back and say, but God, but God, what He did. Let's go to our Word and Prayer. Gloria, what amazing things we have to count upon as we look at this passage. How astounding a way you carried out your love and your life with Paul. and how equally amazing You've carried out Your love and Your life with us. We who have put our trust in You. A trust that You prepared in eons past, even before You said, let there be light. And Lord, as we look at this passage, we let it sink into our hearts and into our minds. We would ask that you would bring these truths home, that we would ponder the immense significance of the calling that we have in you, the preparation that you're doing, the ministry that you have before us. And as Paul certainly saw the significance of what you had appointed him to, may we also see the significance, the eternal significance of what you've appointed us to. And Lord, we thank you that it's all by grace. Phenomenal, amazing grace. In Jesus' name, Amen.